City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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VILLANOVA — Wooga Poplar figures he had around 15 family and friends in the Finneran Pavilion on Monday night. He could not add everyone he was supposed to add. Expect the list to grow for the former MCS star, if he continues to do what he did in Villanova’s season-opening 75-63 victory over visiting Lafayette.

Poplar, the 6-foot-5 senior shooting guard, finished with a game-high 20 points on eight-of-13 shooting, picking up for missing Villanova star redshirt senior Eric Dixon, who was serving a one-game NCAA suspension for impermissible participation in an event last spring.

Poplar withdrew from the NBA Draft in May and opted to transfer into Villanova from Miami this past June. In many ways, it made sense for Poplar, who before last season Miami coach Jim Larranaga predicted was headed for a breakout year.

Poplar had his moments, like scoring a career-best 25 points last December in the Hurricanes’ win over La Salle. He entered Villanova after hitting career highs last season, averaging 13.1 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists as a junior, while shooting 38.5% from 3-point range.

Once the Hurricanes entered the ACC season, Poplar’s numbers began to sink. He did have a 17-point game against Pitt, and scored 15 against Duke.

Dixon is going to need a shoulder to lean on this season, and those shoulders could belong to Poplar.

There was a sort of comfort coming back home and playing for Villanova. Poplar knows the reputation Philadelphia basketball carries nationally, and it is motivating.   

“This is where I am from, and at MSC (now closed), we wore the same colors,” Poplar said. “It’s a great experience and I’m happy to be here. My teammates made me successful (tonight). They just handed me the ball at the right times. I just wanted to go out and execute and play 40 minutes of Villanova basketball.”

As far as what he viewed his role as prior to the season, Poplar said, “I don’t really know. I just to win and be the best teammate I can.”

Poplar stressed that he refocused this summer on trying to be a better all-around player. He finished with 10 rebounds, more than double the 4.8 rebounds a game he averaged last season.

“I thought he was great, tonight just shows what type of player (Wooga) is,” said Wildcats’ sophomore guard Tyler Perkins, a Penn transfer. “It’s great to have someone like that on your team.”

Wildcats’ coach Kyle Neptune started Perkins, Poplar, Jhamir Brickus, Jordan Longino and Enoch Boakye. He did not discuss or designate anyone to step into Dixon’s main role, or even look to someone to be Villanova’s No. 2 scoring option.

Did Poplar help himself in that area?

Did Dixon’s absence present Neptune a different look at what the ‘Cats might be the times Dixon is out?

“This is basketball, I don’t think we even addressed it as a team, we literally didn’t even address it,” Neptune said. “We knew (Dixon) was going to be out. These guys knew he was going to be out. We have a lot of confidence in the rest of our guys. We don’t look at one, two, or any of that stuff. I’m just saying each guy has a unique skill set and Wooga Poplar is arguably one of the best shooters we’ve had here when you look at his numbers in terms of what he has done.

“So far with us, he is arguably one of the best athletes that we have had here. He is a great teammate as well. We have a lot of guys who have a lot of college experience. We have two guys from our team that have been to a Final Four, Wooga has been a part of a Final Four.”

As for the game, it was a struggle during large chunks for the Wildcats. The game was locked up at 37-37 with 16:01 to play. That’s when Villanova found another gear and the overmatched Leopards could not keep up, getting outscored 13-2 in a 4-minute, 36-second span. That gave the Wildcats control, though did not cement their first victory of the season.

Just when it looked like Lafayette was climbing back, Poplar made a steal and a slam with 9:02 to play for his 19th and 20th points of the night.

Villanova led by a slim 30-29 at halftime. Poplar buoyed some bad shooting by going 4-for-6 from the floor for a game-high 11 points through the first 20 minutes. As a team, Villanova was 12 of 29 for the half, though finished the game making 31 of 60 shots, going 19 of 31 in the second half.

“Our guys played hard, and we made some key stops when we needed them, and probably had more turnovers than we would have liked to,” Neptune said. “Other guys tonight had to step up (with Dixon out).”

The hometown kid wearing his old high school colors certainly did.

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here [mobile.twitter.com].